Between You and Me
by Rockbird86
Summary: Tumblr prompt - With his thoughts and feelings for sister Bernadette strong than ever Patrick confines in someone who would understand him and will listen ...his late wife
1. Chapter 1

**January 1958**

There hadn't been any snow so far that winter. However, the cemetery was covered in a thick layer of frost that was almost as bad and made walking treacherous unless you concentrated on each step. Patrick always found it hard to concentrate here. He hadn't visited the grave as often as he felt he ought to, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to come. Margaret wasn't really here. She was in his heart, in Timothy, in the bricks of the house, the photos on the shelves and the memories that they shared. However, on the first anniversary of her passing he felt he owed it to come and see where she lay.

It had been a very hard couple of years. The cancer that took her from them far too soon had shown itself and spread quickly. A doctor himself, even he had to admit that it was one of the most accelerated cases he had ever seen. In no time at all, she was gone, and he was left trying to explain what he himself didn't understand to the nine year old son that she had left behind.

As he knelt in front of the stone, he cast his mind back several weeks. The first Christmas without her had been fractionally less painful than he had anticipated. He had been dreading it. He and Timothy had begun to forge a life for themselves out of the wreckage. It was far from perfect, but it was working for them, and the onset of Christmas and its tendency to bring on melancholia wouldn't help. The nuns had extended the hand of friendship and the Turners had been invited to Nonnatus House for Christmas lunch. Much as he would have happily let the day pass by unmarked, for Timothy's sake he had accepted.

Sister Bernadette had helped immensely. She had confided to him some weeks back that she had lost her own mother at a similar age and it was clear that she had an understanding of what Timothy may be feeling. Some foresighted person had sat her next to Timothy at the Christmas table and Patrick had taken great comfort from watching the young nun coax him out of his sadness and give him as close to a good Christmas as he could have wished for given the circumstances.

Patrick brushed away some of the frost and laid the flowers in the clear space. Sister Bernadette. Patrick smiled as he pictured her with Timothy. The youngest of the nuns by some decades, she had the infectious vibrancy of youth that appealed to Timothy but seemed incomprehensible to Patrick himself. It wasn't purely due to age although he preferred to use that as the excuse. Sister Bernadette carried her many responsibilities lightly. A highly skilled nurse and midwife, her life was spent tending to the people of Poplar every bit as much as his was. Yet much as he was dedicated and passionate about his work, the stress of it ate away at him in a way that it did not with her. Perhaps it was her dedication to God that helped. He certainly had no such faith, sometimes wished he had. Margaret had often teased him for his cynicism. Gently religious herself, she had dutifully taken Timothy to church every Sunday but Patrick had never wanted to be included.

He chuckled. _Maybe you were right, Margaret_, he thought. It seemed that the Lord was determined to work his way into their lives regardless, through Patrick's work with the Nonnatuns and Timothy's budding crush on the young Sister. _You should see him, Margaret, _he said_. It's Sister Bernadette this and Sister Bernadette that, little shy smiles when he sees her and can't do enough to help her. Who would've thought that his first little girlfriend would be a nun. He'd better get over that one quickly, he's fighting a losing battle against God! _He paused, serious now._ Our little boy is growing up. It's unthinkable that he should do that without you, but he is. Quite the young man now, you'd hardly recognise him. _

He knelt in quiet contemplation for a while, running his mind back over some of the happier times, the early days of their marriage, Timothy's arrival and early childhood. Eventually, giving in to the pain in his kneecaps he stood, brushing the damp from his trousers. _But we're doing alright, I think. We love you, and miss you and life will never be the same, but we're managing. Don't worry about us._

Blowing a kiss in the direction of the ground, he turned and made his way back to the car.


	2. Chapter 2

July 1958

The rain had finally cleared and the long awaited summer seemed to be peeping through the clouds. Poplar was in holiday mood, summer fairs springing up in different parishes and many of the families in the area planning their annual hop picking holiday. Patrick was not in a holiday mood. This summer had been proving difficult but not for the reason that he would have predicted the year before, and today, he was in torment. _Stupid stupid stupid_ he thought to himself yet again as he made his way amongst the gravestones. That word had been stuck in his head ever since the previous afternoon when he really had been remarkably stupid.

Arriving at Margaret's stone he gave a smile as he read the inscription, hoping to feel better but instantly feeling even more stupid than before. He knelt, clearing aside the wilted flowers from his mother in law's last visit and placing his bunch of pink roses in their place. _Oh Margaret_, he said, _I really need your help_. The irony wasn't lost on him. That he was at his late wife's grave, about to confide in her the ache in his heart for another woman was ludicrous and only added to his misery.

_I've been really stupid_, he said at last. _Do you want to know what I did yesterday? I kissed a nun. A nun, that's right. Feel free to laugh because everyone else would. I would myself if it didn't hurt so much. _

He closed his eyes, rewinding to the day before. The day that Sister Bernadette had yet again appeared and subtly taken his place to ensure that Timothy didn't miss out. Patrick had known when he agreed to it that there was a 50/50 chance he would be called away before the three-legged race and sure enough the call had come. When he arrived back at the All Saints Parish summer fair the last thing he had expected to see was Sister Bernadette, shackled by the leg to his son and flying ahead of the rest to the finish line. Their determination to win had led to a tumble over the line and a minor injury to Sister's hand but the glee on his son's face was a pleasure to see.

He didn't know what possessed him to follow her back in to the hall. The cut was minor and she was more than capable of seeing to it. But he had felt compelled, felt like he needed to say something although he didn't know what. The same compulsion had led him to do the unthinkable. Gently taking her hand under the guise of examining the graze, he had kissed it. A nun's hand, and he had kissed it. It could have been worse, far worse. For a while now he had felt like he was under a spell, the feeling heightened when in her company. He had lost count of the times when he could so easily have taken a step nearer, placed his hands on her face and bent his lips to hers.

_Damn damn damn_, he blurted out, more loudly than he expected. _Please, please tell me what I should do. This is madness, it's keeping me awake at night. What do you do when someone is in your head and you can't get them out? _He sighed_. I'm sorry my dear. I'm sorry, you are the last person I should be telling this to. But there is no one else I can talk to. Please Margaret, what should I do? I can't be in love with her, it's not right. But it's the only thing in this world that feels right. _

He took out his cigarette case and lit a Henley. Drawing it deep into his lungs Sister Bernadette appeared again in his memory, taking a sneaky puff on his cigarette and confessing to a previous incident of petty theft. He smiled at the memory. _You remember Sister Bernadette when she came to Poplar? You used to wonder what made a young girl like her give up her life like that when she should have been out making friends and enjoying her youth. And she was so kind to us, so caring when… _

His mind began to wander back to the dark days of early '57 and his wife's rapid decline. The nuns and nurses of Nonnatus house had been sensitive and efficient in their care of the dying woman and a great support to him and his son. He remembered Sister Bernadette quietly changing bedding, giving injections, washing and caring for the woman he was talking to now. He had always admired the young woman, respected her and her skills greatly. When had it changed? When had it become a physical pain? All he had ever seen was her face and yet he ached to take her in his arms, remove that blasted wimple and see her properly, to stroke her hair, the colour of which was a mystery to him. He often daydreamed about it. Fair, he had thought most likely having discounted both red and dark as not suited to her colouring.

He stood and shook his head as he turned to go, a small smile forming. He really was in deep and there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it. But Margaret had sent no thunderbolts down and although no solution was presented to him, he felt more at peace than before. He would simply have to learn to live with it, to keep it as his own private joy.


	3. Chapter 3

August 1958

With Timothy finally asleep and the house quiet, Patrick collapsed onto the sofa and closed his eyes, trying to clear the pressure from behind them. It had been one hell of a day. It had promised to be a great success, and mostly it was. The x ray van had seen hundreds of people pass through, hundreds of people who would be declared free from TB or be treated for it in time to hopefully avert more serious consequences. The earlier it was caught the more optimistic the outcome, that was the point of the van. So why couldn't he apply that same logic to the one patient that tore at his heart strings the most? TB had targeted one of the only two people in the world he truly cared about and today, after some of the worst hours of his life, he had been forced to leave her to the care of Sister Julienne when all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and hold her tight.

She had only had the x ray to coax a little girl into the van, never for a second thinking that her card would be in the unlucky pile. When the cards for follow up appointments were handed back to him, the nausea he had felt when he saw her name was overwhelming. Gasping for air he had gone outside and shakily lit a cigarette, his mind in knots as he tried to absorb the news and think his way through the next steps. Her face when she entered the room, so innocent and delighted with the success of the van. And he had no choice but to shatter that.

And then the hideous examination. How he had dreamed of touching her, despite trying to banish such thoughts from his mind as being sacrilegious, his mind returned to the same place every night as he tried to sleep. Under the circumstances and in the presence of Sister Julienne, he had tried so hard not to touch her skin, to only place the stethoscope where it was needed yet every nerve in his body ached for the opposite. He knew she could feel it, had begun to suspect that she felt as much for him as he did for her. He only prayed that Sister Julienne was oblivious and had put the tension in the room down to the diagnosis when he knew that both he and Sister Bernadette were thinking of other things.

He eased himself up from the sofa and poured himself a whiskey from the bottle on the sideboard. Picking up the photo that stood next to it, he went back to the sofa and placed both glass and photo on the coffee table in front of him. He looked into the laughing eyes of his late wife and took a deep sigh. Whatever influence Margaret could exert up there wasn't enough it seemed. Combined with the praying that Sister Bernadette was undoubtedly doing, there should have been an answer by now. And yet it didn't come and his feelings grew stronger with each passing day.

And he knew there was worse to come. He had spent the late afternoon ringing round various medical contacts. After more examinations at the London tomorrow morning, he had arranged to drive Sister Bernadette to one of the best sanatoria in the country. Places were extremely difficult to come by but a vacancy had been found by calling in a few favours. He wouldn't see her left to the home care that other sufferers would have to make do with. He stared at the photo, trying to imagine what Margaret would have done.

_Seize it_, she would have said. _Life is short, we know that all too well. Tell her how you feel. She is the nun, the decision is hers. But if she is what you want then you need to let her know that. You deserve to be happy._

_Live for today, _Margaret had always said. And it was just as well, given how things had worked out. He knocked back his drink and ordered himself to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a horrible day. But maybe tomorrow he would find a way to tell her…


	4. Chapter 4

December 1958

The frost was back. It hardly seemed a year since he had done the exact same thing but it was, give or take a month. Today Patrick's step was lighter as he weaved his way through the headstones in the growing early morning light. He didn't have long but this visit was essential to his peace of mind for the rest of the day. Again he laid his flowers in a space cleared of the frost. He had brought white roses, a larger bunch than normal, reminiscent of the bouquet that she had carried on their wedding day. He remembered it well, a sunny May afternoon, so different to today. She had looked beautiful despite the limitations of a post-war wedding dress and he, watching her progression down the aisle, had almost burst with pride and love.

It had been unthinkable then that he could ever feel like that about someone else. But today, he would watch another woman make her way down a different aisle, her face still hidden by a veil. But a different veil to the one that she had worn for the last ten years. Today Sister Bernadette truly became Shelagh and today, Shelagh became his wife.

He bowed down and kissed the cold grey stone briefly. _Thank you,_ he whispered. _I love you_. And with a smile he took a deep breath and turned to embark on the rest of his life.


End file.
